KIRKSVILLE - Kirksville High School boys basketball coach Tyler Martin said he had been waiting for senior Tyson Grgurich to have a huge game.

The wait is over.

Grgurich exploded for 23 points, lifted the Tigers through a third-quarter dry spell and made big plays down the stretch as Kirksville downed Hannibal, 51-48, Tuesday night at Tiger Gym.

Kirksville improved to 3-1 on the season and 1-0 in the North Central Missouri Conference, taking the league opener in a thrilling game that wasn’t determined until Nathan Farnsworth grabbed a rebound with 0.8 seconds left.

“It’s a big win,” Grgurich said. “Hannibal is always a tough team in the conference and for us to come out and get a close win like that to start off the season, it definitely means a lot to us.”

Grgurich credited his performance to his teammates. His coach said Grgurich might finally be getting healthy after an early-season injury.

“We’ve been kind of waiting for that out of him,” Martin said. “He had an early season injury and that kind of hurt him and slowed him down. That week off may have helped him with his confidence to attack a little bit. He came up big for us.”

The Tigers fell behind 38-30 early in the second half, but Grgurich rattled off six straight points and Austin Motley drained a jumper to tie the game heading into the final quarter.

While the offense tied the score, it was the Kirksville defense that kept the deficit manageable. After Hannibal opened an eight-point lead, the Tigers mixed up some zone defenses and kept the Pirates off the scoreboard for more than six minutes.

Martin said the defensive changes were done more to energize his own squad.

“Switching it up changes their focus a little bit, they get out and run a little bit,” Martin said. “In the 2-3 zone, it helped us to rebound. That kind of shored some stuff up.”

Once Hannibal got untracked, they scored in a flurry and grabbed a 43-39 lead. Two free throws by Grgurich and a layup from Asa Sparks retied the game.

Then Grgurich gave KHS the lead for good, grabbing a rebound off his own miss and watching the putback crawl over the rim with 3:15 remaining. A few moments later, he put back a Kevin Hennke miss to give the Tigers a 47-43 advantage.

Hannibal wasn’t quite finished, as Dalton Powell drilled a three that made it 49-48 with 24.8 to go. The Pirates quickly fouled Sparks, who hit one at the line, setting up a frantic final possession that saw Powell miss a short runner and Farnsworth secure the game-clinching rebound with 0.8 seconds left. He tacked on a free throw to make the final margin 51-48.

Page 2 of 2 - “It felt good,” Grgurich said as Farnsworth came down with the rebound. “Really, really good.”

Sparks said “a thousand things” were going through his head as Farnsworth snagged the rebound, while at the same time his thoughts were drowned out by a raucous student section.

“That was nice to hear,” he said. “Whether or not it goes our way, it helps us a lot. We know the crowd is there behind us.”